The Grinch (Otis “Money Bag Mafia” Mcintosh) and Santa (Navv Greene) have issues, so the Grinch goes from stealing toys to taking the man’s wife (Christianne “Chrissy Cindy” Jones), and she actually enjoys being with a new man. Or whatever a Grinch is, look, my life has reached the level where my only enjoyment and escape is watching this movie and trying to figure out who it’s for and why anyone other than me would watch it.

Whenever I started to worry that this had no plot, I was rewarded with montage sequences of the Grinch throwing money and women twerking. No notes on that.

I love that this came up as a recommended movie on Tubi, who knows me so well. It’s a minute of plot thrown into a film that feels like several months long and filled with people shouting their dialogue. It also debuted in March, which seems to be the perfect time for a movie set during the holidays, but who am I to question the decisions of the filmmakers? That’s really the least of this movie’s faults. Let’s instead celebrate its best parts, which are almost all curvy black women celebrating the freedom of dance and just taking off their clothes. I wish the Grinch wasn’t a misogynist, but this isn’t the movie where he will learn his lesson. I doubt anyone would want to see that. We should all hope he does better next time.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Anna Kent (Raylene Harewood) is the CEO of the company that she started with her husband, COO Brill Cooper (Rainbow Sun Francks). However, he’s been cheating on her with Ophelia Skye (Jessica Thomas), who has discovered an ayahuasca by way of The Substance drug that unlocks the potential of the human spirit. Along with her adopted brother Quan (Christopher Omari), Anna is out for revenge and to save what’s hers.

Directed by Mitchell Ness and written by Juliette Monaco and Emily Pillemer, this has a modern way of looking at the issue: Anna and Ophelia soon learn they have more in common than just both being with Brill. They may be perfect for one another.

That said, no one really cares about each other except the two women. People puke out the elixir and die, Quan gets killed doing Anna’s espionage and podcasters are catty. That said, it’s a Tubi Original out to entertain you with almost no budget. I assume most of the money went to the yogi studio and the Temu activator.

You can watch this on Tubi.

We often think that ninjas only started to exist in the 80s. Yet, in the early 60s, there was a craze in Japan because of the Shinobi no Mono books and these three movies. Written by Tomoyoshi Murayama, these stories were serialized in the Sunday edition of the newspaper Akahata from November of 1960 to May of 1962, with the name meaning “ninja.”

The novels are set during Japan’s Sengoku period and star Goemon Ishikawa, a famous outlaw hero who used his ninja skills to battle the samurai. While the real man and his son were boiled alive in public after their failed assassination attempt on the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the fictional version has become a Robin Hood-like character, a man with near-superhuman ninja powers at times.

Goemon had already been the subject of several pre-WWII Japanese films- Ishikawa Goemon Ichidaiki and Ishikawa Goemon no Hoji. Still, in the early 60s, when a thief protecting villagers against the rich and powerful would be a theme that resonated with the Japanese, he became a pop culture sensation.

Band of Assassins (1962): Raizo Ichikawa plays Goemon as a young man here, a member of a ninja clan who must constantly worry about being found and destroyed by the samurai. He’s been selected to kill Nobunaga Oda (Tomisaburo Wakayama), which makes the other ninjas jealous. So now, Goemon is nearly a man without a country as he must deal with assassination attempts, double crosses and his mission.

Directed by Satsuo Yamamoto, this turned into the kind of movie that grabbed the attention of Japanese kids. It was intended to be one and done, but by the end, even though only Goemon survives and can escape this world of treachery and violence to have a family, he had to return. Ninjas, a real thing that had disappeared from the world- or is that what they want you to believe? — only to take over pop culture twice in the 20th century.

Revenge (1963): Nobunaga Oda has killed all of the ninjas of the Iga clan, yet he doesn’t know that Goemon has survived. Our hero just wants to build a family and disappear- ninjas are good at part of that- but he’s soon pulled back into combat when his infant son is killed.

Instead of running straight into the bad guys, as most action heroes would, Goemon uses psychological trickery and his ability to hide just about anywhere to drive his enemies crazy. Unlike the first film, where his honor is constantly on the line and he must watch everyone, his goals in this film are much more straightforward: kill the people who ruined his life.

Even though Goemon is boiled alive at the end of this- but not before shouting out the bad guys as way worse thieves than him- there’s still one more movie. How can that happen?

Resurrection (1963): Thanks to Hattori Hanzo (Saburô Date)- yes, the same man who made swords in Kill Bill– Goemon has survived, as he was switched out with another ninja at the last minute. I didn’t see it happen, but that’s just how talented a master ninja can be.

This idea was enough to get director Satsuo Yahamoto to quit the series, which brought in Kazuo Mori to make this for Daiei. It’s revisionist history- perhaps this is where Tarantino got the idea to save Sharon Tate- but in the service of pop culture and film commerce.

Now, he must get the revenge he’s craved for two movies now and take out Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Eijiro Tono). This is more personal and has less swordplay, but I’m sure audiences were ready for more, seeing as how all three of these movies were made over two years.

The Radiance Blu-ray box set of the Shinobi trilogy has digital transfers of each film presented on two discs, made available on Blu-ray for the first time outside Japan. Extras include an interview about director Satsuo Yamamoto with Shozo Ichiyama, artistic director of the Tokyo International Film Festival, a visual essay on the ninja in Japanese cinema by film scholar Mance Thompson, an interview with film critic Toshiaki Sato on star Raizo Ichikawa, trailers, six postcards of promotional material from the films, reversible sleeves featuring artwork based on original promotional materials and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Clements on the Shinobi no mono series and Diane Wei Lewis on writer Tomoyoshi Murayama. This limited edition of 3000 copies is presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip, leaving packaging free of certificates and markings. You can get this from MVD.

Available on Blu-ray for the first time outside Germany, thanks to Radiance films, The Cat is about a team of bank robbers — Junghein (Heinz Hoenig) and Britz (Ralf Richter) — who hold a bank hostage for 3 million German marks. Yet what the police don’t know is that Probek (Götz George), the true criminal, is hiding outside, directing their every move.

Directed by Dominik Graf and written by Uwe Erichsen and Christoph Fromm, this is a movie is planning and control. Probek thinks he has every angle covered, but he didn’t plan on the bank manager’s wife, Jutta Ehser (Gudrun Landgrebe). She may be even more in control and better at schemes than he is.

Unlike an American heist movie, this isn’t about action. Instead, it’s about the waiting, the moments in-between, the times where tension increases until ready to explode. It does, trust me, but this film has no problem waiting. That makes it so much more different than the robbery films that I am used to.

The Radiance Films limited edition release of The Cat comes inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings. It has a high definition digital transfer newly graded by Radiance Films and overseen by director Dominik Graf, interviews with Graf, screenwriter Christoph Fromm and producer Georg Feil, scene commentary by Graf, a trailer and new English subtitles. You can get it from MVD.

We all know Lone Wolf and Cub in the U.S. Before that, Tomisaburô Wakayama starred in these three films, which combine Italian Westerns with Eurospy for a series of saucy, spicy and delicious dishes.

Killer’s Mission (1969): Directed by Shigehiro Ozawa, this film introduces Ichibê Shikoro, a secret agent/doctor/all-around tough guy who has been hired to protect the only person who can save Japan. Shikoro even has gadgets like any good spy of the time, such as a sword cane, a folding pistol and knives that emerge from his sandals. He’s joined by a female spy who has a comb that doubles as a dart gun!

The Satsuma clan wanted to purchase a thousand rifles from a Dutch ship that would give them a modern edge against their rivals, the Tokugawa, and change the balance of power. Of course, Ichibê Shikoro is more than up to this challenge, even fighting another samurai in a Sergio Leone-inspired duel. Well, Leone stole from Japan first, you know?

I’d never seen any of these films and am frankly amazed by how fun they are, even if the hero never works as a bounty hunter.

The Fort of Death (1969): Coming out the same year as the first movie, this Eiichi Kudô-directed movie brings back Ichibê Shikoro in the service of the villagers of Enoki Village, who have hired him to stop the elite from taxing them into oblivion.

Seeing as how its hero starts the movie dragging a dead body while on a horse and smoking a little cigar, and it ends with a Gatling gun-powered massacre, this is very much the West going to Italy before coming to Japan. Als,: They brought some ninjas.

This is the kind of film where the bad guys take a dead body of their comrade and throw him like a bomb at their enemies, only to be bested by a massive gun that needs to be cooled by the only liquid left, urine. That said, the only weapon it really needs is Ichibê Shikoro, dual wielding a katana and a six-shooter, somewhere between the West and the East in his own strange time zone, killing everyone in his path, no long a spy, still a doctor, always a bad ass.

Eight Men to Kill (1972): Three years later, Shigehiro Ozawa would direct the final film in this trilogy. Ichibê Shikoro must find the missing gold in five days before a solar eclipse happens and Japan falls into turmoil again.

Everyone else that he comes into contact with only wants the gold for themselves, making our hero the lone center of morality in a grim and bloody world. How grim? How about at least two scenes where bellies are sliced open to reveal stolen gold, as well as numerous heads, hands and arms all sliced off.

This feels like it mimics the Italian Westerns’ move to darker and more horror-filled ideas before comedy took over. It’s very open about how little its hero cares about the government and how they handle their business; even when the villains pay for their crimes, there’s still very little hope by the end.

This Radiance Films box set has extras including audio commentary on Killer’s Mission by Tom Mes, an interview with film historian and Shigehiro Ozawa expert Akihito Ito about the filmmaker, a visual essay on Eiichi Kudo by Japanese cinema expert Robin Gatto, a series poster and press image gallery, trailers and more. You can get this from MVD.

This is a feature-length documentary on the historic Dallas, TX (2424 Swiss Avenue) goth club The Church, one of the longest-running clubs of its kind in the U.S. You’ll meet those who run the place, musicians, local bands, patrons and other people who explain why this place is just so important, as well as its motto of “Enter Without Prejudice.”

There’s a storyline in here with DJ Joe Virus, who went from a local to a national artist, as well as how the club would eventually close after the times of COVID-19, as a big company bought the entire block. Seeing the people whose lives were made by the space come back for one last time is quite emotional.

I always dreamed of places like this, as Pittsburgh had some minor spots — and I got here after The Decade and the Electric Banana were closing up — but nothing like this. If your town has a place with a history and a scene, celebrate it. You won’t know what you have until you lose it.

You can get this from MVD and learn more at the official site.

This took me way too long to see, and wow- it’s perfect.

Kevin (Kevin Martin) runs Video Blaster, a rental store whose clientele is slowly dying off. One of his best customers, in fact, has just died, and his daughter Nyla (Yaayaa Adams) has come to drop off his last rentals and find out exactly what the strange black and red glowing VHS her father had is all about.

Then things get crazy.

Directed by Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford (who wrote the script with Joshua Roach), this has that cursed tape—The Videonomicon—reanimating the rentals of Nyla’s father: a movie starring action hero Jackson Viper (Josh Lenner), one of the many Castor Creeley (Leland Tilden) Beaver Lake Massacre slasher sequels and an early 90s CGI Predator rip-off. Now, the store is as deadly as so many of the movies inside it and cut off from the outside world.

Steven Kostanski from Astron-6 did the effects. Martin used to run an actual video store, and this starts with a fake Italian movie that I wish I could watch. It is based on The Lobby DVD Shop in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. There are movies with titles like Preystalker and Warpgate in this, and yes, I would watch both of those, too.

At one point, Kevin says, “I used to get paid to talk about movies with people, but then they stopped coming.” Anyone who regularly visits this site will feel so much of this movie. If you can name more than ten Empire Pictures movies, they pretty much made this movie for you.

The Arrow Video blu ray release of this film has extras including commentary by film critics Matt Donato and Meagan Navarro; a new visual essay by film critic Heather Wixson co-author of In Search of Darkness; a new visual essay by film critic Martyn Pedlar; several short films by Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford; clips from the first attempt at making this, behind-the-scenes videos; a trailer; an image gallery; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critics Anton Bitel and Alexandra West; a reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by John Pearson and a double-sided fold-out poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by John Pearson.

You can buy it from MVD.

Directed by Abel Ferrara and written by Nicholas St. John, who worked on nine movies with Ferrara, this black-and-white film has Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor) get bitten by Casanova (Annabella Sciorra) and become a vampire, an addict, or both.

Ferrara made this as a metaphor for drug addiction as he had been on heroin for years and has Kathleen, after hitting bottom at an orgy of death and blood drinking, accepting that she is powerless and needs God as she’s reborn and visits her own grave.

Taylor is incredible and the visuals are so bleak. As always, New York City feels like the end of the world in a Ferrara movie. It also has Christopher Walken, Edie Falco, Jamel Simmonz from the Flatlinerz, Fredro Starr from Onyx and Michael Imperioli in the cast. While some may see it as an arty film filled with pretense, I’d remind them that Ferrera comes from the grindhouse and knows how to use horror to tell a story about something real.

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of The Addiction has a brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative by Arrow Films. There are also extras that include a commentary by director Abel Ferrara, moderated by critic and biographer Brad Stevens; Talking with the Vampires, a 2018 documentary about the film featuring actors Christopher Walken and Lili Taylor, composer Joe Delia, cinematographer Ken Kelsch and Ferrara himself; interviews with Ferrara and Stevens; a feature on the editing; a trailer; an image gallery; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by critic Michael Ewins and an interview with Ferrara by Paul Duane.

You can buy it from MVD on 4K UHD or Blu-ray.

Known in Italy as Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture Paperino, because Paperino is what they call Donald Duck) and La Longue Nuit de L’Exorcisme (The Long Night of Exorcism) in France,  this was what Fulci considered his best work, despite it being controversial for its day because it criticized the Catholic Church. This led to a limited run in Europe and its unreleased release in the US until 2000.

In the south of Italy, specifically the tiny village of Accendura, Bruno, Michele, and Tonino are engaged in mischief and other activities. They do all the things you expect little Italian boys to do — smoke cigarettes, watch prostitutes have sex, abuse a pepping tom — earning the ire of La Magiara (Florinda Bolkan, also the star of Fulci’s giallo A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin), a witch who digs up the bones of an infant before conducting a ritual where she creates voodoo style dolls of the three boys, stabbing them with needles and chanting over them.

Bruno is the first to go missing, inciting a media frenzy as reporters from all over Italy make it the story of the week. Andrea Martelli (Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, Fulci’s The Four of the Apocalypse) is one of them, yet more intelligent than the rest. Sneaking into the police investigation, he wonders aloud why the kidnappers, who have called in a ransom, have asked for a small sum. The peeping tom is arrested once it comes out that he buried the boy’s body- but he claims that he only did so to try and get the ransom. While he is held for questioning, the second boy, Tonino, is found dead, proving the innocence of the pervert.

Meanwhile, the final boy, Michele, meets a rich girl gone bad, Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet from The Red Queen Kills Seven Times), who sunbathes in the nude and has no problem letting the kid watch. Someone calls Michele during a rainstorm the following evening, and he becomes the third victim.

This gives the reporter the chance to meet and get close to Patrizia. Turns out she’s hiding out in her wealthy father’s modern house after a drug scandal- MARIJUANA!!! — and the villages have already condemned her as a slut due to how she dresses. The reporter also meets the young village priest, Don Alberto Avallone, who lives with his strange mother and deaf, dumb and mentally deficient little sister.

Don Alberto is deeply affected by the boys’ deaths, as they were all pupils at his school, and he attempted to keep them off the streets and playing soccer. He’s so well connected — both in town and with the Catholic Church — that he censors even the magazines on the newsstand. He remarks that he wishes that he could censor Patrizia.

One thing you’ll notice about Giallo is that the more you watch them, the more you realize that they introduce you to character after character after character just to have characters, unlike the traditional British or American detective story, where everything happens for a reason.

That means it’s time to meet someone new. Francesco, an old man who lives in a cave, practices black magic and considers Magiara his student. He refuses to cooperate with the police, so they hunt Magiara down and interrogate her. She begins to convulse, scream and froth at the mouth, happily admitting that she killed the boys because they disturbed her son’s grave. And oh yeah — that child was the son of the devil.

Even though she was nowhere near the murder scene, the villagers are convinced that she’s the killer. The police can do nothing but release her, a release that leads to her doom, as a walk through a cemetery leads to her being beaten with chains by a gang of men (several of the grieving fathers are in their number). This is where Fulci lets loose with the gore, with each hit bringing shards of flesh and bone and blood to the fore, ending with Magiara crawling up a cliff, begging for help as cars just pass her by.

To the shock of the villagers, the murders don’t stop. But at the latest one, Martelli has found a Donald Duck head. This makes Patrizia realize that she bought that doll for Don Albeto’s sister after she saw her walking with another headless doll.

Their theory — that the little girl is imitating her mother by pulling the heads off the dolls — is decent. But they’re wrong. The killer is revealed spectacularly, with a dummy drop that, today in 2025, is astounding for just how little it resembles a living human being and is just as shocking as it was in 1972, as it falls into several rocks, emitting showers of blood.

While filled with blood and horror, this is one of Fulci’s finest movies, one that puts a lie to the idea that all he could do was make movies filled with gore. It moves away from Rome, the expected Giallo location, to the hills outside of civilization, to a place tied to the old ways and ancient beliefs that doom nearly everyone.

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of this film has a brand new 4K restoration from the original 2-perf Techniscope camera negative by Arrow Films; audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films; Giallo a la Campagna, a video discussion with Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film; Hell is Already in Us, a video essay by critic Kat Ellinger; Lucio Fulci Remembers, a rare 1988 audio interview with the filmmaker; interviews with actresses Barbara Bouchet and Florinda Bolkan, cinematographer Sergio D’Offizi, editor Bruno Micheli and makeup artist Maurizio Trani; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ilan Sheady and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Barry Forshaw and Howard Hughes. You can get it from MVD.